Proposal for a design layout of the data center infrastructure environment through the use of server virtualization.

Running head: MODULE 2 PORTFOLIO MILESTONE 1

MODULE 2 PORTFOLIO MILESTONE 1

Module 2 Portfolio Milestone

Terri Bradshaw

ITS439 Virtualization Technology Fundamentals

Colorado State University – Global Campus

Dr. Mazen Alkhatib

February 4, 2020

Module 2 Portfolio Milestone

Virtualization has been around since the 1960s, but it was not until the 2000s that it started to become more accepted. As virtualization technology has continued to improve over the years, it has become more common. The popularity of virtualization has also introduced a wide array of virtualization software products offered by many different companies. Most of them offer a variety of different versions and features, so deciding which one is a good fit could depend on the environment it will be implemented in and the level of expertise of the team who will manage it. VMware is one of the companies that has over twenty years of experience.

VMware

VMware started in California in 1998. With over twenty years of experience they have become one of the leaders in virtualization technology. The company offers several different products in their inventory that are divided into desktop applications and server applications.

The recommendation for Denver Solar Panels, Inc. is to convert they tradition environment to a VMware vSphere environment. The architecture of a virtual environment is a series of files, so this will allow the organization to install multiple applications and operating systems on one physical machine. Additionally, the physical hard drive, RAM, network interface card and CPU would be shared with many different virtual machines (see Figure 1 in appendix). VMware has its own file system called virtual machine file system (VMFS) which is compatible with all file systems. VMFS would be formatted so it is compatible with whatever file system is required by the operation system that is already in use. The files for each virtual machine are stored in a virtual machine folder and each virtual machine has a configuration file, swap files, BIOS file, log files, and virtual disk files.

There are many benefits of a virtual environment and as previously discussed, the amount of hardware required for traditional physical architecture is greatly reduced, but something that has not been discussed in great detail is how quickly hardware is considered outdated. Technology changes at such a rapid pace, the physical machine is considered obsolete after two or three years. Less money and time will be spent on upgrades in the virtual environment. Software needs to be upgraded too but because each virtual machine isolated from other virtual machines, they can be upgraded without the worry of affecting the performance of another application or operating system on the same physical machine.

Features of vSphere

VMware vSphere is a suite of server virtualization products that offers many beneficial features. Thin provisioning (TP) is a process of optimizing space to make available space more efficient. Snapshot and restore is a feature that allows an administrator to make a copy of the virtual machines disk file (VMDK) at a given point in time, for example, before a change is made. The snapshots provide a change log for the virtual disk and can be used to restore a virtual machine. Snapshots alone would not replace a backup, but a snapshot could be used to restore the virtual machine to a particular point if a change does not go as planned. Several snapshots could be taken as a means to create multiple restore points if the need presents itself. vSphere Client is an HTML5-based management interface that provides a way for users to remotely connect to vCenter Server which is a management tool that provides a single pane of glass view of all ESXi hosts. vCenter Server is the central control point for data center services and the single pane of glass view lets the administrators have a “big picture” view of what is going on.

Conclusion

Virtualization has been around since the 1960s but not accepted until the 2000s. Technology has come so far since those early days, it is not only accepted, it is quite common today. The architecture of a virtual environment requires less hardware and the ability to share resources. VMware is one of the leaders of virtualization and they have over 20 years of experience. The vSphere suite of products offers many beneficial features that would be a good fit for Denver Solar Panels, Inc.

Reference

Rouse, M. (2017, November 21). What is vmware vsphere? - definition from whatis.com. Retrieved February 10, 2020, from https://searchvmware.techtarget.com/definition/VMware-vSphere

SEGET, V. (2017, August 04). What is vmware mirage? Retrieved February 10, 2020, from https://www.vladan.fr/what-is-vmware-mirage/

Appendix

Figure 1